Does Santa Monica need another coffee shop?

SECOND STREET — Fine chocolates and the latest yoga gear are just some of the products Santa Monicans could buy as they make their way out of a new parking structure currently under construction on Second Street.

A rendering of Parking Structure 6 and its storefronts on Second Street. (Image courtesy City of Santa Monica)

Members of the board for Downtown Santa Monica Inc., the body charged with managing and marketing Downtown for City Hall, got a first look Thursday at four proposed business that could be located on the ground floor of Parking Structure 6 when it is completed this winter.

They are: Electric Yoga, which specializes in yoga gear; Espresso Cielo, a coffee shop; KC Chocolatier, which sells sweets; and Orangetheory Fitness, a gym that uses an intense cardio and strength-training workout.

Parking Structure 6 has been closed since February 2012. The cost to construct the structure is $43.165 million, according to a 2011 city staff report. When finished, it will have three subterranean and eight above-ground parking levels with over 700 parking spaces, roughly doubling what was there before. There will also be enough room for up to 90 bicycles and 19 motorcycles.

There will be 7,042 total square feet of retail space, city officials said.

Barbara Bryan, vice chair of the Downtown board, said she was surprised on who the proposed tenants were and wondered what they would do four or five months in if business wasn’t going well. She was concerned about duplicating what is already available on Second Street. For example, Bryan said there are already two other yoga places on that street.

“There’s an urgency to rent it and I’m not sure what this urgency is,” said Bryan, who co-owns Interactive Cafe on Broadway. “The city itself really owes something to the businesses that have been here. It’s not just, ‘you’ve been here, time’s up, we are going to bring in something new.’”

Rob York, president of York Consulting Group, LLC, said city officials should “take a hard look” at the proposed tenants’ business plans and financial information.

“[S]ome board members felt there was an opportunity to get a little more diversity in the uses and the tenants,” York said. “Part of the issue was there wasn’t enough clarity or information on the tenants.”

That led the board to ask city officials to come back with more details before it could recommend tenants to the City Council for approval.

York said another substantial challenge was the property is going to be a “really, really raw space and there are no tenant improvements,” meaning any entrepreneur that comes in will have to invest a significant amount of money upfront on bathrooms and other essentials.

“It’s basically concrete slabs,” said York, who works as a consultant for Downtown Santa Monica Inc.

For board member Johannes Van Tilburg, of Van Tilburg, Banvard & Soderbergh (VTBS Architects), the concern was about the design of the structure. Van Tilburg said he wanted to see the store fronts protrude to the front of the building and wanted to get the opinion of the City Hall architectural department.

“The lease space should come out to the front of the sidewalk,” Van Tilburg said.

Board member Bruria Finkel recommended that city officials do some “fresh thinking” on the space as well as the particular businesses that will go into it.

City officials, meanwhile, told the board part of the challenge was the retail space is a very “ill configured space.”

Jason Harris, the economic development manager for City Hall, said the real sense of urgency is not to have vacant storefront.

“Our true goal and intent here was to activate the space,” Harris said.

When City Hall reopened parking structures attached to Santa Monica Place there were vacant storefronts along the Broadway portion for several months. Those spaces have since been leased.

This si what Rob York said at the bus trip in July 2012 when SM Planning Dept and City Manager were wooing MORE development:
Anderson (Jim Anderson, President, NMS Properties); You’ve asked why a lot of this mixed use retail has failed.. I think it’s because historically the City has forced developers to put retail in places where retail doesn’t work without the flexibility of them using it for the types of uses that do work like,…….
( Rob York, President, York Consulting Group, LLC) said “Some incoming businesses need to be hand held through the entitlement process attention because it was an afterthought because you’re chasing returns associated with the residential. Now we all have experience in that and we do realize that if it’s not designed appropriately, it’s not located appropriately, it will not be successful. So you have to pay attention to all those items. I think you’re seeing that newer products in Hollywood and LA are starting to do it a lot better, but in doing so you’re getting better tenants, better longevity, better credit, you’re not just getting your Mom and Pops that are in and out every month or every other month or so. Brad, (Cox) do you have any thoughts on that?

So he doesn’t want mom-and-pops. Another person who should be disqualified for a conflict of interest. The worst thing about him is Rob York is employed by the CITY as a consultant to advise them on the project. When you start with a bias against mom-and-pops, you’re guaranteed to get a soulless city as SM is rapidly becoming.

Is it a mom-and-pop coffee shop? If it is, it is not the same in any respect as yet another Starbucks or Peets or Coffee Bean. The parking structures are like subway stations. People coming out are likely to buy coffee. Much less than yoga gear. But if the people wanting to rent are qualified, I don’t believe it is even legal to discriminate against them to protect existing businesses. I also think someone on the Board who operates a business in the neighborhood has a conflict of interest and must be disqualified from participating in the discussion, much less voting against a potential competitor.

Santa Moncia does not need any more coffee shops, especially downtown. There are already too many coffee shops downtown, e.g., Coffee Bean at 2nd and Santa Monica, at least one Starbucks on the Promenade and another in the bookstore at the Promendade and Wilshire, and several others close-by, such as the Coffee Bean on Wilshire and 9th or 10th. Starbucks is also taking over the Farrah’s Flower shop at 11th and Wilshire. It’s overkill.